


Not Quite The Lady

by tielan



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Bathroom Sex, Character Study, F/M, Love, Porn, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-27
Updated: 2011-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:56:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the people Gwen might have supposed to ever be having a bath in her chambers at any time of day, her husband, Arthur Pendragon, is the most likely candidate. Yet his presence is decidedly unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite The Lady

**Author's Note:**

> Fluffy, humourous sexfic, although I feel like this story should come with a warning along the lines of "Don't try this at home, kids!" Hehe. I hope you enjoy. :)

The habits of a servant are hard to put aside in some respects.

For instance, Gwen knows precisely which sheets are on her bed at any given time (this week they are scented with violet and edged with matching embroidery), and can state the inventory of various linen presses about the castle to within a sheet, dependant on how many days it is until washday. This might not be unusual in a princess' personal servant, but is certainly unusual for a queen.

She also has a tendency to forget that she has servants to fetch her things, and will go after them herself - much to the distress of the palace servantry, who thereafter behave as though she has personally criticised their efforts.

So, when Gwen recalls the sheets she's been saving for the physician's classes in town, it is nothing to her to send her servants on ahead, while she goes up to her rooms to fetch them herself.

"I know where they are, Mildryth. I'll get them."

If she wasn't already burdened with a pile of sacrificial linens, Mildryth would wring her hands. "But surely my lady can tell me where they are!"

"Your lady hid them from you and your ruthless housekeeping." Gwen smiles at her maidservant's expression to soften the blow. "It will be easier if I get them. I'll be down at the house soon."

The house she was granted freehold as recompense for her father's death has become a place of teaching. Simple things that make a difference in the townspeople's lives. Practical things, needing neither money nor magic - hygiene and cleanliness, simple medicines and herbal cures.

Today's lesson is the cleaning and binding of common wounds.

Arthur encourages the spread of such knowledge, for which Gwen is both pleased and grateful. He's not like Uthyr at the end, to fear knowledge he didn't understand.

She wouldn't have married him otherwise.

The door of her room scrapes the floor of the outer chamber, and she frowns a little at the noise. The wood swelled with the winter damp and has not shrunk with the summer weather - a small inconvenience but a simple one to fix - once she gets around to reminding the Master of House.

As Gwen drags it closed behind her, she seems to hear someone moving about in the inner chamber and turns sharply, one hand reaching for the candlestick that rests on the nearby table. "Who's there?"

No answer comes, and she frowns a little as she sets the candlestick back. For a moment, she could have sworn she heard water slosh, but who would be using her bath in her private chambers? She listens, but all she can hear is the Master of Arms drilling the guard out in the courtyard.

Gwen crosses the room, pulls open the door to the inner chamber and heads for one of the boxes she keeps beneath the bed - one to which only she has the key. It scrapes a little on the floor as she pulls it out, and in the moment after it stops, she hears a drop of water fall into a filled bathtub with a tiny _splash!_

She sidles up to the screen and pokes her head around, not entirely sure what to expect.

Of all the people she might have supposed to ever be having a bath in her chambers at any time of day, her husband, Arthur Pendragon, is the most likely candidate. Yet his presence is decidedly unexpected.

Perhaps it is the sodden strands of hair plastered down over his brow, or the way his lean frame seems too large for her hip bath. Perhaps it is the hangdog look, as though he is embarrassed to be caught here. Perhaps it is just that Gwen is struck anew by the fact that her husband is a very handsome man - and somewhat delectable sitting naked in cooling water in her chambers

For a moment, they stare at each other, before her mouth twitches and his twists into a wry smile.

"Ah, Guinevere. There's an explanation for this..." He  trails off, as though embarrassed. "It was Merlin."

Gwen's brows rise in surprise. "Merlin drew you a bath?" That would be quite outside Merlin's current purview as royal sorcerer of the king - although something he's done plenty of times before.

"No! He was trying some experiment with magic that ended up making a mess of his workroom - soot and this foul purple muck over everything - including us! Of course, he could fix himself with a spell - and did, right before my eyes. Then he went on to claim that since the spell was of a cleaning nature, it required an intimate knowledge of what it was cleaning and since he didn't wish to incur the wrath of my wife," here, he cast a dire look in Gwen's direction, " _I_ should go up to the castle and bathe."

Years of training as a palace servant keeps her face _almost_ straight. She can just imagine Merlin's expression, the sparkle of mischief in his eyes while Arthur stares at him in the blank look of infuriated disbelief that her husband gets when unexpectedly thwarted.

If Arthur isn't quite giving her that narrow-eyed look of infuriation right now, it must come close.

"Are you laughing at me, Guinevere? Because if you were, I might have to take measures."

"Never, sire." Gwen manages to keep a mostly serene countenance as she surveys him. "Only wondering what is wrong with your own bath."

"Cenred dropped it as he was putting it down, and now it leaks." Arthur leans back with a big sigh and a ripple of water and bangs the back of his head on the metal rim of the curving bath-end.

This time she cannot help the laughter rising at the ridiculous sight of the King of Camelot - the legendary Pendragon - sitting in a bathtub in her chambers, all long muscle, lean limb, and injured pride. It bubbles up and although Gwen covers her mouth in an attempt to hold it back, it bursts from her in helpless peals while her husband's expression grows increasingly annoyed.

"I'm glad to have provided amusement!" His voice sharpens as he rubs at the back of his damp head with one hand, and a sulky glance flashes out towards her. "What are you doing up here anyway? I thought you had a class this afternoon."

She sobers a little, mastering her expression with a little 'ahem', although the smile still twitches at her mouth. "I do. I came up to fetch some linens."

"I know it may have escaped your notice, Guinevere, but we do have servants for that."

"True. But they don't know where I hid the worn ones."

Arthur opens his mouth to ask, a frown darkening his brow, then closes it again as though thinking better of it. Gwen answers his unasked question with a smile. "Bandaging strips."

"I see." He doesn't, of course - how could he, having been born to privilege and steeped in it from the first breath he drew? Old damaged sheets are replaced - that is all that concerns him. What happens to them afterwards is a matter for servants, not nobles. "Well, don't let me keep you."

Arthur's wave of the hand is no less lordly for being dispensed from a tub, and Gwen can't help her smile any more than she can help the warm rush that wells up in her chest. So many contradictions in one man, and yet he manages to marry them into a whole - her husband, her lord, her king.

A quick sidestep of the screen around the bathing area, and Gwen bends down to brush her lips across his. Not a noblewoman's gesture; but she is no noblewoman.

She expects the hands that wind themselves into the mass of braids she keeps coiled at her nape. She expects the way he leans forward, his mouth moving eagerly under hers. She does not expect to be pulled down into his lap with a splash of water and her husband's laugh ringing in her ears.

"Arthur--!" Any further protest is lost in an ardent kiss, and Gwen briefly forgets that she has promised linens for bandages, that sodden silk billows around her waist, that the tub's edge digs into the back of her legs.

Her hands slide down his sides, slick with water as she splays her hands across lean, bare flesh. Arthur makes a sound like a moan beneath her lips and his hands mould her waist with long, strong fingers. The  pressure encourages her to nestle in against him, and she yields to that suggestion with her own sigh of pleasure.

Amidst the responsibilities of the court, it can be difficult to find a time to themselves. They are not their own; he with his responsibilities to the realm, she with her responsibilities to the people.

And this midday meeting is unexpected, with Arthur's hands on the back laces of her dress and his lips making their way down the side of her throat, Gwen's hands on his hips sliding down the sensitive line of muscle to his groin where his member is already swelling with male desire.

Laces loosen and the throat of her gown slips down, the neckline catching on her nipples before Arthur tugs it fully down, uncaring of the price of the material in his eagerness to see her bared. Then his mouth is on hers and his hand is pressed beneath her bared breast, savouring the pound of her heart against his palm.

Gwen matches his movement, pressing her hand against the flat muscle and triumphing in the leap of his heart to her touch, even as she nips at his tongue with her teeth.

"I thought," she murmurs between biting kisses, "you were not going to keep me."

Then she whimpers as he nibbles at her earlobe, as one set of sword-calloused fingers mould her nipple with familiar tenderness.

"I'm the king. That means I get to change my mind on occasion." His hand slides up her leg, drawing up the hem of her sodden dress. "Besides, my lady, I think you're well worth keeping." Arthur's voice is soft and husky with desire as his fingers trace her cleft, lightly.

Gwen shifts beneath that touch, making the water ripple in waves, but her position is awkward. She is only half in the bath, and twisted uncomfortably around as well as fully clothed. "Wait."

Arthur lets her go reluctantly, stealing unrepentant kisses while her damp shoes slip and slide on the tiles as she tries to gain a foothold. For that, when she undresses, she faces the diamond-paned window not the bath and denies him the view he desires. First the kirtle, unbound and dropped to the floor, then the underdress, clinging wetly to her skin as she slides its loose folds from her shoulders.

Behind her, Gwen can hear his breathing, harsh and rasping beneath the drills that ring outside. When she glances over her shoulder at Arthur, his hands are flexing on his thighs, his member erect and swollen in the water, and she grins at him and the high flush that rides his cheeks.

"Come here." Desire makes his voice a husky growl, need and urgency unmistakeable.

Gwen steps delicately across the tiles before taking the hand he offers to stabilise her, and climbing into the bath.

Arthur does not allow her to sheathe him yet, though. His hands slide sensitive lines across her skin, his mouth moves delicate traceries of desire over her flesh. When his fingers find her cleft again, stroking with a familiar rhythm, her body shatters. She arches and clutches his head to her breast - aching, golden.

When her tremors cease, Arthur's lips are curved with a lazy, pleased smirk. That he takes pleasure in her pleasure is a wonder; gossip from the ladies of the court suggests not all men are so.

Gwen wipes the smile from his face with her mouth on his and her hands on his member. In the cooling water, he is hot muscle and quivering flesh, so firm to her touch and yet so fragile in control. He groans in her mouth when she squeezes him, and the water slaps against the side of the tub as his hips thrust in an instinct as old as the congress between a man and a woman..

"Guinevere..."

"Patience is said to be a virtue, my Lord."

"By the priests, maybe - who've never had their wife's hand on their cock like this!"

Gwen laughs at his grunted exclamation. But other than that one sharp protest, that one aching jerk, he doesn't press her. It still touches her heart. He could force her if he wished; it would be within his right to do so as husband, as king. Yet Arthur's hands are still gentle over her breasts, down her sides, fondling her nether lips; he coaxes her rather than commands her. Her husband desires her willing, and because he desires and does not demand, Gwen is more than willing to accommodate him.

And in accommodating him, she also happens to accomodate herself.

She draws back and sheathes him slowly, sweetly, smiling as he groans. In her conversations with the ladies of the court, Gwen has discovered it isn't considered appropriate or genteel for a lady to ride her husband astride, as though he were a beast of burden.

Gwen is not quite a lady.

And, as it happens, Arthur seems to enjoy being ridden.

In fact his fingers grip her waist all the more fiercely as the water sloshes around them, disturbed and displaced by the uneven rhythm of skin against skin.

Their movements splash water across the tiles; the tub creaks with their exertions.

In the narrow space, Gwen can't ride him as deeply as she enjoys. But it is enough to watch him pant beneath her limited thrusts, a warrior undone in desire, to know she can destroy Arthur Pendragon with the slightest movement of her hips. There is both pleasure and power in that - and tenderness, too. Tenderness also in his hands cupping her breasts, his teeth nipping her neck, his member deep within her, a heated friction that makes her shudder, shudder, shudder...

The cry escapes her lips, forced between, and beneath her, her husband laughs and murmurs, "Twice would seem overeager, my lady."

"Or perhaps my lord is overzealous," she retorts before bending to bite his lips - a light bite that turns hard when his fingers clamp upon her nipple in painful pleasure. "Ah!"

"My lord?" The voice is young, startled, echoing through the chamber.

"Not now," Arthur groans, then lifts his voice. "Cenred, get out!"

The note of command is clear through the rough velvet of interrupted desire. Yet, as water washes and flesh slides, Gwen can hear the manservant's footsteps coming closer as he questions, "My lord?"

" _Get out!_ "

As the door scrapes closed, laughter bubbles up within her, like hiccups or the dizzying spin of a fine wine. In spite of her embarrassment, in spite of the terrible, wonderful sensations that thrill through her flesh, Gwen finds herself laughing, even as Arthur growls at her.

"You find...this amusing?"

This time, she teases his lips with a long slow sweep of her tongue. "Yes, my lord."

One hand wraps around her nape, and he drags at her mouth. No more interruptions, no more lazy strokes. Now his hips and hers work him to a quaking, aching completion that laves both of them shaking, crying out in blessed release of body and soul.

Repletion is the lazy stroke of his hands up and down her back, the delicate shift of his not-yet-but-soon-stubble against her shoulder, velvety soft.

"You'll be the death of me one of these days, Guinevere."

"Death from sexual congress," she muses. Then a smile touches her lips and she lifts her head. "But wouldn't it be a nice way to go?"

"I never said it wouldn't be." Arthur dabs a kiss over her collarbone before he comments, "Now, are we able to get out of this tub, or will we have to break it as well?"

They don't break the bathtub, but they do spill half the water out.

"Good thing there's sluicing to carry it away," Arthur comments, naked as the day his mother birthed him and quite unconcerned by it.

Gwen rolls her eyes as she shrugs on her bathrobe, hanging from its customary hook. He doesn't realise that Cenred will be mopping up the mess they've made for some time. She feels momentarily guilty for leaving it like this - Arthur is nothing if not demanding on his manservants, and Cenred will be very busy.

"You've got those classes to go to, don't you?" Arthur surveys her. "I do hope you're not planning to go like that."

Gwen backs away as he begins to stalk her. Arthur in a playful mood is a dangerous thing - and he is often playful after intercourse. "Arthur..."

He sighs. "The voice of reason." But he still steals a kiss from her. "I'll help you get dressed then, shall I?"

As he laces her up in a dry kirtle, Gwen wonders what the court would think of their king, the great Arthur Pendragon, clad in nothing but a pair of trousers, damp from his bath, and acting as lady's maid to his wife.

And how he can stand there without so much as a stitch and not feel the cold is beyond her.

"Why the smile, Guinevere?"

"Nothing, sire."

The hands tugging at the laces pause. "I could make you tell me."

"Perhaps I'll let you," Gwen tells him, and feels his interest sharpen. "Later tonight."

His hands are on her hips, pulling her back against the lean, warm length of him as his jaw rubs her cheek. "Is that a threat or a promise, my lady?"

She lets her fingers slide over his hands. "Whichever you prefer it, my lord."

The kiss, when it comes, is long and slow and deep, and Gwen has to drag herself from it at the last, picking up the box of linens as bulwark against anything further he might try. " _You_ might be the death of me, my lord."

Arthur's grin is brilliant, insouciant. "My dear Guinevere, I intend to be. Now go, before I change my mind and keep you further..." The one step he takes towards her is more threat than intent, but Gwen heeds it and hurries out into the empty corridor with a laugh.

Queen and linens arrive down at the cottage much later than planned, and if Mildryth scolds her, she takes it meekly, and with only the faintest flush on her cheeks to betray what she was doing all that time.

 


End file.
